tommy525 wrote:As for Taipei, the very very best cups of coffee iv ever had was at UESHIMA cafe on ChongSHanN.Rd. tHEY had decent meals and really just the very best coffee one could have.

It was perfect ! No matter what you ordered. A taste of heaven indeed. Just slightly bitter, not heavy coffee. Very light but flavorful. The flavor was deep but light.

Im sure it was 100pct arabica rather then robusta.

NObody has since equalled them. They have closed down now. No idea where they went.

Ueshima has three locations in Taipei, but not on Zhongshanbeilu. I walk by the one on Dunhua all the time but have never gone in. Japanese coffee doesn't really beckon me. Maybe I should give it a try. Do you remember the name of the coffee you had, tommy?

tommy525 wrote:Since we are talking about coffee, [do] you mind if we expound upon what makes a great cup of coffee?

I'm more into lighter roasts than darker ones. I can take a mild roast flavor, but I really hate a predominant burnt flavor. My favorites have been from Ethiopia. Idido Misty Valley and Beloya were knockouts, and I had a nice Harrar which was good, too. The berry flavors found in those coffees were very distinct and tasty. Unfortunately, it's been difficult to find good Ethiopians because of the new coffee exchange system they're using. A lot of the good stuff now gets mixed with the poor stuff. A close second for me was a very nutty Brazilian peaberry from Fazenda Lagoa. If I could only drink two styles of coffee for the rest of my life, it would be a berry-like Ethiopian and a nutty-like Brazilian.

I've tasted a couple different lots of Hacienda La Esmeralda Geisha from Panama. It's a nice coffee (very light, sweet, delicate, and floral), but it's not one I could drink every day for the rest of my life. Also, it's ridiculously priced.

Like other posters, I very much like Cama and some of the other small roasters scattered around Taipei--and Fong Da is a classic place in Xinmending to hang around over a nice cup of coffee. But if you are into dark roasts (west coast north American style following the tradition of Peet's Coffee) then things get trickier as most of the local shops in Taiwan use Japanese style roasting techniques. There's nothing wrong with this of course but it's a completely different taste.

SlowRain wrote:If you want quality, you're better off going freshly roasted. That means buying it within a day or two of being roasted and using it up within 10-14 days at the latest. Nothing from Costco would meet that criteria--nor Starbucks, for that matter. Try to find some place that will give you at least some information about the region it came from, not just the country. Some places will even tell you which farm it came from and what processing method was used [ie. natural (sometimes called dry-processed), pulped-natural (sometimes called semi-washed or honey process), or washed (sometimes called wet-processed)].

I don't have any specific recommendations for places in the area you mentioned, but you could always try ordering from Cafe Lulu in Taichung. Lulu is the barista, and her husband does the roasting. She speaks very good English, and she has a number of customers from Taipei who get her to send roasted coffee to them, partly because they like her coffee and partly because it's cheaper to run a business in Taichung. She'll grind it for you first if you want, but you should buy your own grinder if you want your coffee to taste better.

Is Cafe Lulu still in business? Is this still the place to go for beans?

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